Cobain's legacy still evolving 15 years after suicide

Thousands of fans gathered at Seattle Center to mourn the death of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain.

Thousands of fans gathered at Seattle Center to mourn the death of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain.

Photo: Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Photo: Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Thousands of fans gathered at Seattle Center to mourn the death of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain.

Thousands of fans gathered at Seattle Center to mourn the death of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain.

Photo: Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Cobain's legacy still evolving 15 years after suicide

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

It first hit Charlie Harger on Monday, when he told his radio broadcasting class that Sunday was the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, and all he got was nods and shrugs:

A lot can change in 15 years.

"It's weird seeing the detachment," said Harger, an anchor at KOMO-AM/1000 who teaches part-time at Green River Community College. "For my generation, I viewed it as a huge turning point when Cobain died. But when you step back from it, I'm not sure young people are as upset as I was."

Harger was 19 on April 5, 1994, the day medical examiners believe the 27-year-old rock star got high on heroin and Valium and shot himself dead with a shotgun, sending shock waves through the music world and drawing all eyes to the city that hosted his rise and -- reluctantly -- his fall.

There's no doubt Seattle will remember Kurt Cobain. The question is, how? And for what? With every year that moves him from the personal memory of some to the collective history of all, some say that should get easier to answer.

"His celebrity, the details of his death, some of that has faded, and maybe that's a good thing," Cross said. "It's less about the fact that Kurt died and more about the fact that he lived."

Of course, the long-closed case still has life. Seattle Police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb, who rocks out to Nirvana tunes on his Rock Band 2, said the department still keeps a file in its public disclosure unit for that occasional call from a zealous fan asking for the latest developments.

Most fans have let him rest in peace.

Related Stories

"I can hardly believe it has been 15 years," said Jeff Burlingame, co-founder of the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a nonprofit organization working to celebrate Cobain in his hometown of Aberdeen. "And it seems like just yesterday that I smashed my $100 bass guitar through a sheet rock wall when I got word of his death."

Burlingame, who recently got the city to erect a sign that reads, "Welcome to Aberdeen. Come as you are," gave a presentation Sunday about Cobain's life and legacy to a packed house in an Aberdeen winery. Cobain's grandfather, Leland Cobain, was there, as were fans who had come from as far as Colorado and even Spain.

But even though Cobain's talent went around the world, it had the greatest impact right here.

"Nirvana was as important as Starbucks and Microsoft in making us count. We were all of a sudden -- we were the place to be," said Katherine Boury, who was 23 when she stumbled on a memorial service for Cobain at Seattle Center in 1994.

It wasn't any particular love of his music that made her attend the service when she heard it on a loudspeaker on the way to another Seattle Center event, she said. It was the way his identity had blended with the city's. He was more than a rock star. He was Seattle's rock star.

"It didn't matter whether you liked (Nirvana) or not. Kurt Cobain was definitely ours" she said. "He just really felt like somebody in your neighborhood. I don't know how to explain it."

Fifteen years ago Wednesday, Harger drove to Cobain's home on Lake Washington Boulevard and held vigil with two friends hours after Cobain's body was discovered there.

On Sunday, Cross, who calls Cobain "the last great rock star," dropped flower petals on a bench where Cobain fans have been leaving memorials in Viretta Park, near his former home. Years ago he covered the 15th anniversary of the death of another rock star -- Elvis Presley -- for The Rocket, the Seattle music newspaper he once published. One hundred thousand people attended the ceremonies.

Cobain will probably never have a Graceland, he said. But the scruffy, introverted kid from Aberdeen was an artist, not a showman. He probably wouldn't have wanted it anyway.

He was too busy making music.

"Leland has garbage bags full of letters he's received from Kurt's fans, and he has answered every one of them," Burlingame said. "He told us yesterday that nearly every one of those letters could have been written by the same person. That's because they all say the same thing -- the music of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana moved them in such a way that their lives are better because of it.